The End Of A Bad Policy

To the Editor,

There has been a lot of chatter in the country lately about people wanting and trying to repeal the “Don’t ask don’t tell policy.” I have to admit I am extremely glad that our country’s president has finally come around to repealing this law that didn’t make sense to begin with.

The whole idea of “don’t ask don’t tell” is that homosexuals can serve in the military but they are not allowed to be openly homosexual. One of the main reasons that gays are disallowed the ability to join the army openly is that a soldier needs to have the ability to “trust his fellow man” and that if his fellow man is a homosexual he will be more interested in his fellow man as a sexual partner than a partner in the military. Now for a military based on an idea of trust and honesty, how can they even begin to think that “don’t ask don’t tell” is a good idea. The military wants honest, hardworking soldiers but if you’re homosexual they want you to lie to their faces or they will kick you out.

Another reason that the military is so concerned with homosexuals serving is that they do not wish to have them on the front lines and be unable to perform as well as a straight person could. This is a concept that is somewhat understandable but also invalid. Not only because a homosexual people are just as capable as straight people but because most homosexual people, by nature, are not going to sign up for the military to be in the front lines where this trust is really so necessary.

Recently there were a sum of homosexuals that were discharged because of their openness. They were filling jobs like Arabic interpreters and language specialists. The most notable discharge was that of Bleu Copas, a decorated sergeant and Arabic linguist. This is a sad tale because the military and our country is in true need of people that are able to speak Arabic and if he was a decorated sergeant he must have been doing something right.

Now what I must ask and what truly bothers me is in cases like Copas’s was it really worth losing a skilled military man and linguist just because of his sexual preference?

I just believe that we should be more focused on someone’s performance as a person and not care about their sexual preferences because it is apparent that somebody being homosexual does not get in the way of somebody succeeding in the military.

Sincerely

Austin Cirella

23 Sawmill Ridge Road, Newtown                        February 23, 2010